Free Subject: At the discovery of Taiwan

Taiwan is a small island, but where there are so many things to discover! With three exchange friends, we left to discover this island full of surprises.

We began to make our trip over three days, because it was easier to juggle the courses each time. Therefore, we started our trip on Friday morning in the direction of the natural park of the Taroko Gorge.

Taroko Gorge formed by the river that flows through these great cliffs of marble. The road crosses the mountains and gives stunning views of waterfalls, tunnels, pagodas and temple. As the Park is very large, we could not visit it completely in one day, but we saw the main spots recommended by guidebooks.

On the way we are thus ridden up a bit more than 3000 meters above sea level, allowing us to discover any other landscape that we used to see in Taichung.

This place is really beautiful and very impressive!

Then we went to Hualien, a city in the West coast. We spent the night there.It is a city by the sea, and one of the only one where there is a real beach.

On the evening we went to a KTV to continue our immersion in the culture of Taiwan. KTV is karaoke, it is a very important place for the Taiwanese, this is an integral part of Taiwan culture. . Many of them take this very seriously and gives rise to performance impressive. For our part we were only very bad singer who made themselves ridicule on stage...

In the morning, we took the car to go to the panoramic tour of the West Coast. All this sea-side has a protected status since 1987; it begins at the mouth of the Hualien River and ends in the South of Taitung. Then, we continued our journey on this road between sea and mountain. On the way we made stops at the most important places to visit the caves of Bashian who pay homage to deities Taoists, on a famous bay for its number of surfers, and at hiking places which gives stunning views of the ocean. Despite the extent of the coast we did not find beaches where we could swim.

We arrived at Taitung on the evening, then we tried to visit the famous Shiben hotstpings. Unfortunately, the only public sources are for boiling eggs and are not bigger than one meter. The only sources for a swim where in the hostels. Therefore, we visited the mausoleum of the martyrs and some rice fields, but it is not a very big city and we were very tired by the road, so we went to have some rest.

The next morning we left early because we had a lot of road before returning to Taichung. We passed through the South and stopped at Kaohsiung on the way. It is the second largest city in Taiwan. It is a very modern city that has grown significantly thanks to its port. We walk a little bit there, and then we went back.

It was a very busy but excellent weekend. We drive almost 800km, but it was very nice.